Improvement in portable medicating hot-vapor baths



R. R. ROBERTS. Portable Medicatin-g Hot Vapor-Bath.

No.163,4l3. Patented May-18,1875.

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WITNESSES:

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THE GRAPHIC COJHOTO-LITHJQEKM PARK PLACEJLY.

UNITED STATES ROBERT E. ROBERTS, OF HOT SPRILTGS, ARKANSAS.

IMPROVEMENT IN PORTABLE MEDICATING HOT-VAPOR BATHS.

Specification forming part of L"tters Patent No. 163,4 i3, dated May 18, 1875; app ication filed October 31, 1874.

To all whom it may concern Beit known that I, Dr. ROBERT R.ROBERTS, of Hot-Springs, in the county of Hot- Springs and State of Arkansas, have invented a new and Improved Portable Medicating Hot-Vapor Bath, of which the following is a specification:

This improvement in the mode of administering medicated hot-vapor baths consists briefly as follows: a plain box is provided for inclosing the patient except thehead, in which hot air and vapors are generated and inclosed, the dimensions being such as to render it portable, and so that it can be readily admitted through any common doorway; and the box is provided with an adjustable seat and foot-rest, and means for admitting cold air to the lamp, for oxygenating the vapor.

The drawing represents my improved portable vapor-bath in two different sectional elevations, one on the line 00 ac, and the other on the line 1 y.

The box A can be made of any good clear well-seasoned lumber, which should be matched and rendered as nearly air-tight as possible. In the front of the box a door-Way is cut for the admission of the patient, a door, B, being hung therein, which is kept-closed by a movable button, 0. The height. of this door will be such as to admit the patient readily for taking a seat in the bath. The top of the bath box has one half covered by a stationary lid, D, and the other half with a movable sliding cover, E, a neck -hole, F, six or more inches in diameter, being out in the center of the lids, one-half in each lid. The hot vapor can be confined or prevented from escaping by folding towels tucked in around the neck, or by making the neck-aperture from sixteen to eighteen inches in diameter, and placing oil-cloth or ducking thereto in two pieces, one-half fastened to either side, which can be drawn closely around the neck by means of strings. This latter mode of preventing the escape of the medicated vapors I prefer to the use of towels for the same purpose, because the larger aperture for the neck enables a patient to sit longer without fatigue and with greater composure, as it allows more freedom and greater flexibility of the body.

At the lower right corner of the box alampdoorway, G, is made, which is closed by a simple sliding door. The seat H for the patient consists of a smooth board about twelve inches wide, extending the full width of the bathbox, where a number of slats, I, are fastened to the sides of the box at different intervals, so as to accomodate both children and grown persons by shifting the seat-up or down. A footboard, J, secured in a similar manner to that of the seat, is placed in front, but should not be less than six inches from the floor of the box, so that the feet of the patient are raised from the floor into the warmer air above.

To generate the heat and medicated vapor alcohol is used as fuel, which is placed in a common pint tin cup,'K, with doubled seams, or a seamless pressed-tin cup, or a cast-iron stew-cup may be used for a lamp, letting the blaze issue from either a part or the entiretop of the lamp, as suits the condition of the patient, or as it maybe wished to give a slow or quick bath. To regulate the flame a narrow strip of tin can be employed. A tin cover is used to extinguish the flame when the patient is in a profuse perspiration. The time of allowing the full power of the lamp varies from six to fifteen minutes, owing to temperature of the weather and the condition of the patient. A tin or galvanized-iron frame, L, is placed at the back part of the bath-box to support the medicatin g cup 0 above the fire, with flanges at the bottom sides to fasten to the floor by tacking them. A sheet of tin or galvanized iron twenty by twenty inches is just the proper size; but the improvement which I claim more especially as very important is the introduction of pure fresh air directly to the lamp, and thus oxygenating the bath without chilling the extremities of the patient, as is the case when cold air is admitted at-the floor of the bath by raising a door. To accomplish this a tin or other suitable metallic tube, N, runs through the back of the bath-box, three inches from the bottom in the center of the box, and it also passes through the tin or galvanized-iron frame, and should just come even with the top of the lamp.

When the fresh air is thus furnished during the entire time of the bath the skin is so much invigorated that it is impossiblefor the patient to take cold (without showering with cold wa- A'IEN'I QFFIOE.

Either cold or warm water canbe used at pleasure, after the perspiration has almost escaped, in this form of sweat-bath.

A pint pressed-tin cup, 0, is riveted to the top of the arch, for the holding of medicines to be burned, distilled, and evaporated by the heat of the lamp underneath. An escape pipe, P, made of tin or zinc, with a damper or valve near the base of the pipe, either straight or with an elbow, is placed upon the top of the box, immediately overa hole of the same size and directly above the lamp in the back part of the box.

The advantages which the inventor claims over all other hot-air or hot-vapor bathing appliances, including even the Turkish bath, are simply these: First, greater efficiency; second, greaterportability; third, greater adaptability, on account of simplicity and cheapness of construction, to general family, as Well as medical and institutional, use; fourth,

the patient does not inhale the heated impure air while bathing, asin the Turkish bath; fifth, it renders a trip to the mineral and hot springs unnecessary by making it possible to have a better and cheaper means, as shown, for the treatment and cure of both acute and chronic diseases.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

The combination, with the close box A, of the open-ended arch L, the lamp K, and a pipe, N, discharging directly into the flame of said lamp, as shown and described, whereby is secured a healthy circulation of air in the box, while said air is warmed before coming into contact with the person of the bather.

ROBERT E. ROBERTS. Witnesses:

BENNETT MALONE, J. W. JORDAN. 

